Q4: How would designating the area as a National Park help to meet the special needs of the area? 2,000 words allowed
Through driving innovation and partnership a new style Galloway National Park will address our area’s competing demands for conservation, communities and commerce with creativity, cohesion and respect. Its location in the national Natural Capital Innovation Zone places the Park in a leadership position to address biodiversity loss and climate change at a scale that will attract responsible private investment. It will:
Deliver landscape scale change in response to biodiversity goals and climate change targets: Galloway has small-scale land ownership with few large estates. Producing change at scale requires the Park to bring individual landowners and managers together to enhance and expand existing nature networks. The Park will provide an opportunity for strategic spatial planning across 3 local authority areas that is essential if we are to address the rapid rate of land use change.
Provide a testbed for innovative nature-based solutions: The Park contains landscape types and land uses which differ from existing NPs in terms of scale and diversity. This mosaic creates unique opportunities for solutions to be trialled and for knowledge transfer to other rural communities as exemplars of good practice. Building on the experience of the UNESCO Biosphere, and relationships with secondary and tertiary educational facilities across Scotland, robust partnerships are already in place. This Park would hit the ground running.
Deliver the Wellbeing Economy: Despite decades of economic investment in agriculture, forestry and renewable energy Dumfries and Galloway has stubbornly languished at the bottom of the income league for Scotland, unlike other rural areas (as defined in IFS Report). Our innovative Park will focus on the regeneration of communities, economy and the environment, building on existing initiatives developed by the Biosphere and others. This includes programmes which acknowledge the distinctness of our rural businesses and communities:
Biosphere Certification Mark which recognises exemplars in local sustainable enterprise
Biosphere Communities programme – work with local people to identify what is special about where they live, supporting residents to make their everyday lives more sustainable.
Biosphere Guides training – building employment capacity of local residents
Potential for Nature Recovery
Galloway’s major land uses, agriculture and forestry, have impacted on biodiversity loss, and contributed to and been affected by climate change. Our fragmented land ownership calls for the convening power of the Park, with its continuity and ability to create innovative funding models to address these concerns. A Park will build on and co-ordinate the many existing smaller players looking to further biodiversity gains and ensure that lessons are shared, and progress maintained. The pilot Regional Land Use Framework provides a clear starting point.
Examples of the potential for recovery and work already underway:
Salmon and trout rivers are under pressure from acidification, warming water, changes in substrate and shifting weather patterns. Galloway’s Fisheries Trust has worked hard to improve matters but much remains to be done; the recent RLUF report highlights poor river quality.
Rising sea levels and shore erosion threaten key habitats such as dunes and saltmarsh. The potential for the re-establishment and creation of new salt marsh is set out in a recent Solway Firth Partnership report. The Park will work with Borderlands Sustainable Solway to take these ambitions forward.
Peat soils are present in as much as a third of the Park area but only 10% is still associated with peatland vegetation due to afforestation, drainage, and over-grazing. Much of this peat is emitting carbon but we have the potential to restore its functionality.
Farmed landscapes, predominantly livestock based, are an important part of our cultural heritage but carry the burden of negative climate, soil and water quality and biodiversity impacts. The Park will work with national and regional route maps to address these issues.
Potential for Cultural protection and enhancement
With 614 Scheduled Ancient Monuments and many more unclassified sites, there is huge potential to interpret our past, inspire visitors and develop educational opportunities. Many sites have stood for hundreds or thousands of years, but are today under significant pressure from coastal erosion, vegetation growth or damage from land use change. The Park would raise awareness of and engagement with our incredible cultural heritage and improve understanding of how the past continues to shape the present:
The rich assembly of ancient archaeological sites above the east shore of Loch Ryan was once a thriving community and is now the most deprived rural area. Interpreting the story of past changes can support communities to adapt and mitigate against changing climate.
Adapting designed landscapes: Threave wetland is an innovative nature restoration in an historic environment. Craigengillan is a great example of holistic estate management with nature and the local community at its core. The prevalence of small estates in Galloway and much of non-highland Scotland provides potential for transferable experiences.
Living culture: The creative sector is closely linked to our natural capital for inspiration and resources. To survive and prosper, this sector needs a supportive market and its skills applied to the transformation required to deliver the Wellbeing Economy. This requires long term certainty for the future and branding which the Park carries.
Our natural capital is our USP. All would benefit from a landscape-scale Park approach to transform to sustainable practices.
River quality: Reducing agricultural run-off and climate impacts will improve water quality for biodiversity. Scotland is host to almost half the world’s freshwater pearl mussels, a threatened species which needs pristine, low-nutrient flowing water to survive. Salmon and Sparling are present but threatened. There is an opportunity to build on the work of Galloway Fisheries Trust by raising awareness of run-off, drainage and extraction issues with land managers.
Agriculture: There is an urgent need to address challenges of CO2 and methane emissions along with loss of biodiversity, reduction in soil health and carbon emission from degraded peatlands. There is a need for coordinated partnership working with the agricultural industry to support adaption measures taking account of changing weather patterns predicted in the RLUF report. The SRUC Dairy Research and Innovation Centre on the Park’s boundary gives potential for showcasing how sustainable dairying can happen effectively in a nature positive landscape. The innovative Natural Capital Farm audits led by the UNESCO Biosphere and the SCAMP project focussing on blue/green carbon and salt marsh restoration led by Solway Firth Partnership are excellent starting points for constructive discussions about change and innovation; many farms such as Cream o’ Galloway show that regenerative and more sustainable models are viable.
Galloway cattle and traditional grazing: Used in many countries for conservation, the reintroduction of these hardy beef cattle - as modelled by the James Hutton Institute - offers big conservation gains where sheep are replaced. They can also reduce the risk of wildfires, encourage the maintenance of dykes, and feed a receptive market for premium, locally sourced beef.
Forestry: Galloway needs ‘the right tree in the right place”. There is a commitment by FLS to multi-purpose forestry, woodland restructuring, removal of trees from sensitive sites, change of species and necessary responses to future risks of extreme weather and pest/disease. Large areas of state-owned and managed forest offer a golden opportunity to experiment with differing silvicultural practices and demonstrate what environmentally sensitive, multi-benefit forestry should look like. This is the time for a co-ordinated approach to undo the mistakes of the past and build a better wooded future.
Peat restoration: The area has significant peatlands, which provide extensive ecosystems, carbon storage and an important archive for understanding climate change. Silver Flowe is one of Europe’s finest patterned mires, renowned for its quaking bog and eerie black pools, whilst Blood Moss is one of Britain’s finest examples of blanket bog. The raised mires of the Solway Mosses are of European importance and further west many other raised mires are associated with kettle holes left by the retreating ice. Forest and Land Scotland and Crichton Carbon Centre are leading on this work but this is a 30-to-100-year project which needs the continuity a National Park can help deliver.
Challenges and opportunities for the sustainable economic & social development and well-being of our communities
Galloway has deep seated challenges which a succession of short-term initiatives have failed to address. The 2022 census shows our area’s net population decline is the 3rd worst in Scotland, our population the 2nd oldest, and working age population the lowest. Rural depopulation is a longstanding issue and threatens the viability of many of our rural schools.
Commissioned analysis of the 2011 census data shows that the population of the Park area is older than D&G as whole with fewer young people or people of working age. There is a higher percentage of people working in elementary occupations than the Scottish average, and more are self-employed, more work part-time and fewer are employed in the public sector. The Job Access score is less than a twentieth of the national average. This analysis shows the economy has a high dependency on primary industries and leisure and tourism (much related to the natural environment and outdoor activities). Reductions in serviced accommodation have been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Self-catering accommodation is currently under-used at 45% in August and 12-35% at other times. This shows both the potential and capacity for increased visitor numbers.
Galloway National Park provides the ideal solution due to its scale and permanence. It will focus on dispersed, sustainable, rural job creation over a long period through increased tourism, inward migration, skills development and investment. The ability of National Parks to attract new families, skilled workers and professionals to the area is a huge bonus.
House prices: These remain amongst the most affordable in Scotland despite low wages, but availability and location are issues given the extremely rural nature of the area. There is sufficient local concern about the impact a National Park might have on house prices for a new Park to consider schemes to support affordable local housing if necessary. We need more young and skilled people.
Increased green and low impact tourism: Visitors already come to Galloway for its magnificent coastal and estuarine bird-watching opportunities and its raptors. We have successful Golden Eagle and Red Kite reintroduction projects, as well as charismatic species such as red squirrels, otters and the Scottish Haven of the recently launched Pine Martens on the Move project. Wildlife tourism is having a growing economic impact and provides a year-round offer due to the sheer variety of habitats and species within the Park.
Well-being: There is an urgent need to reconnect people, and particularly local children with the environment, especially since Covid. The Park has huge potential for improving local health and well-being through prescribed activities like walking, canoeing and ghyll-scrambling, and expanding existing services such as Forest Schools and Branching Out. Many National Parks host initiatives which are specifically designed to reach non-traditional NP visitors such as those who are disadvantaged, disabled, excluded, isolated or bereaved.
Broadband: the roll-out of Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband means better connectivity and new home-working options which allow people to combine a quality of life associated with living in a National Park with well-paid jobs. This would bring money, capital, and skills into the area, as well as reducing the average age and increasing the number of young families. The National Park brand is vital here, not only as mark of quality but also as the driver for those important parts of the economy for existing and potential residents (accessible countryside, leisure facilities, dining out, etc), which then become available to everyone.
Community initiatives: Galloway has a strong sense of community evidenced by a range of place based initiatives developed over the years, including:
Walking Festival, Newton Stewart (2003)
Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town and annual Festival (1998)
Whithorn Priory/ Whithorn Trust (1986)
Kirkcudbright Galleries (2018)
CatStrand Community and Arts Trust, New Galloway (2007)
Galloway is already working hard and creatively to boost the economy and attract more people to enable these initiatives to become increasingly self-funding. Yet the number of visitors and the amount they spend has not increased for the past 10 years – a Galloway National Park will fundamentally change that!